Bob Baxter was a key player in the '60s and '70s folk music revival, starting and running the Stringed Instrument School at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, California for 13 years. During the McCabe years, Baxter wrote monthly columns for both Sing Out! Magazine and Guitar Player, authored over two dozen self-instruction books on acoustic guitar (blues, fingerpicking, accompaniment and flatpicking) and hosted his own television show, "Guitar Workshop" on CBS for 16 episodes, back in 1975. A half-hour interview and music variety show with a live audience, his guests included Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, Mason Williams, Fred Gerlach, Clarence White, Byron Berline and his dear friend and teacher Mance Lipscomb, among others. Baxter also produced several big-time Bluegrass Banjo Contests, including giant, all-day shows at Japanese Village, Devonshire Downs and two killer events at Santa Anita Racetrack in Sierra Madre. In 1977, Baxter left McCabes and opened his own shop (called Guitar Worshop) in Santa Monica on Main and Hill. Besides a full teaching schedule of classes, Bob hosted Saturday night concerts featuring Merle Travis, Elizabeth Cotten, Ramblin' Jack Elliot and many, many others. Burned out and looking for a well-deserved breather, Baxter left the music business in 1980 and went east to New York City. "Kind of a spiritual pilgrimage," he says. Well, the pilgrimage lasted 25 years and Baxter played only sparsely during that time. But his new wife, Mary, put a stop to that and, two years ago, demanded that Bob play guitar each and every day! One thing led to another and, while playing the soundtrack of a TV pilot featuring Bob photographing calendar girls for his magazine, Skin&Ink (which he has edited and run for ten years), Jeff O'Rourke of Gold Chain Records (who owns the studio where the tracks were done) fell in love with the sound and asked bob to make a record for his company, Gold Chain Records. Excited to get back into playing again, Baxter got together a dream team of the nation's top acoustic players, including Bob Applebaum on mandolin, Tom Sauber on Fiddle, John Schlocker on 5-string, Bill Bryson on standup bass and Darren Elpant on drums. Consisting of 14 very-different-from-each-other songs, there are tunes by John Prine to Louis Armstrong, plus four originals. The album is called "Lucky Me," after Bob's title tune, and the release date is mid-May 2006. Welcome back, Baxter. We love ya, baby!
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